Old Saxon Blood — Leonard Tourney

There is much that is entertaining in Elizabethan England, colorful and merrie for both Good Queen Bess and her people. But there are matters savage and murderous, too, and it is County Constable Matthew Stock, a humble clothier by trade, and his practical minded wife Joan who oft must set things right--in a widely acclaimed mystery series as rich in historical detail as it is in suspense.

Sir John Challoner Lay in his Tomb--his Unavenged Death a Blot upon the Family Escutcheon....

The coroner's verdict was death by misadventure, but to Matthew Stock and his good wife Joan--Queen Bess's secret investigators--it was clear that Sir John was murdered, for no man drowns and then climbs back into his own boat. But finding the killer is thorny work. The castle servants are sullen; the neighboring gentry abusive. When someone hides the headless body of a serving maid in their chamber, even the level-headed Stocks fear the strange spirit of evil that haunts the castle. Before long, the bone-chilling outlines of something much deeper and darker than mere murder begin to take shape....